Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Hilarious Sentence of the Day

I clicked on Chuck Norris’ most recent column at the Worldnutdaily, entitled “Resolve to Conquer or Die” and this was the very first sentence:

When President Obama was re-elected, the winds waned behind many patriots’ ships’ sails.

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there. So is the rest of the column, which is little more a pep talk to conservatives. And he knows what God wants him to do, but he’s not going to tell you what it is:

As we walk into 2013, my wife, Gena, and I have again been asking how we can best be used in the fight for God and country, and seeking in particular how the God of our Fathers would have us respond to November’s political mudslide. We believe we know. And like Washington, part of it means altering our strategies and approach, too.

I’ll say this much: If you don’t see Navy Seals on the battlefield, don’t assume for a moment they’re absent from the battle. They’ve merely gone stealth, underground (or underwater!), cloaked and engaged in covert measures and unconventional methods of warfare.

If I’m reading this right, I think Chuck plans to go undercover in DC, perhaps in a cocktail dress and tasteful pumps.

Comments

Will Chucky keep wearing that rug while in those tasteful pumps or go all out as a bald cocktail waitress?

You would think that if god was requesting people to do things over and over, the message would be fairly universal and well understood. Odd that everyone seems to have individual and different messages and that, in many cases, the messages are contradictory.

As an atheist I am forced to make my decisions based on reason not whimsy and mythology.

…Gena, and I have again been asking how we can best be used in the fight for God and country…

I just don’t understand this kind of – and I’ll be generous – thinking. Did God intend Obama to win? If so, what’s Chuck doing here, trying to thwart the will-o-God? If not, then isn’t it presumptuous (to say the least) that Chuck thinks God needs a helping hand?

Perhaps this is the rat covering his butt on the way off the ship. “You’ll see no actual political activity out of me in the next several months. That just means I’m super stealthy politically active!”

When President Obama was re-elected, many patriots felt a waning of the winds that once filled their sails.

Still a little clunky (I mean, fuck, he’s trying to take “took the wind out of their sails” and make it sound all epic and original; the whole effort is doomed to failure) but a vast improvement nonetheless. I can haz editing job now?

Oh wait, I think I’d rather pry my eyeballs out with a splintered pencil than have to copy-edit for WND. Nevermind… Maybe that’s what happened to all their other editors? When Chuck Norris got behind a keyboard, the winds waned behind many editors’ ships’ sails…

I don’t see the transvestite thing Ed does. Don’t see the point, either, since it comes more across as a jab at trans, so I’d suggest being more careful about that sort of thing, along with ‘hysterical’ as mentioned in another comment thread.

As we walk into 2013, my wife, Gena, and I have again been asking how we can best be used in the fight for God and country, and seeking in particular how the God of our Fathers would have us respond to November’s political mudslide. We believe we know. And like Washington, part of it means altering our strategies and approach, too.

I’ll say this much: If you don’t see Navy Seals on the battlefield, don’t assume for a moment they’re absent from the battle. They’ve merely gone stealth, underground (or underwater!), cloaked and engaged in covert measures and unconventional methods of warfare.

I see stochastic terrorism with the reckless military metaphor. Pile it on with the usual talk of “second amendment solutions.” If he’d be open about the strategy changes by proposing something concrete and legal for it to be a metaphor of, I’d be less worried. Doesn’t help that stealth metaphors commonly connote illegality, too.

It can also be interpreted as a threat (empty or real), that non-wingnuts should be worrying about assassins hiding behind every bush. Naturally, the most effective threats are the ambiguous ones.

If you don’t see Navy Seals on the battlefield, don’t assume for a moment they’re absent from the battle. They’ve merely gone stealth, underground (or underwater!), cloaked and engaged in covert measures and unconventional methods of warfare.

Holy shit. Is Chuckie claiming that Navy Seals are going to commit treason and work against their duly elected Commander-in-Chief? And this guy–the one who seems to want to use the military to overthrow a democratic election, militaristically overthrow the will of the public–is the one who claims he’s a patriot?

“It was a dark and stormy night when I first discovered that my second-in-command was giving the third degree to some fourth-estate, fifth columnist because his sixth sense had warned him that the guy was in the grip of the seven deadly sins and, being behind the 8 Ball, 9/10ths of time he would be, understandably, reluctant to place his fate, at this 11th hour in the hands of a jury of 12 of his peers.”

is mine, from some years, an entry in the “Lytton Bulwer” contest at SDSU..

seeking in particular how the God of our Fathers would have us respond to November’s political mudslide

Tell me if I am being paranoid here, or overly psychoanalytical, but this bit seems revealing. The usual term for “overwhelming electoral victory” is “landslide.” Although Obama’s victory was decisive, I am not sure whether it can be compared with, say, LBJ’s 1964 win, or Nixon in 1972. But what’s interesting is that it is common in white supremacy circles to use the word “mud people” to refer to non-whites. Given that Obama’s victory was not a landslide, the use of a term playing on it is not really appropriate and only seems to serve as a vehicle for subtle (we are talking Chuck Norris here) race baiting.

All these small, semi-conscious expressions of racism all result in a concentrated toxicity in the wingnut host that amounts to “nigger in the White House.”

The Conservative wind wanes; the sail no longer proudly bears us on
The new year opens with my wife and I (steadfastly staunch in fealty to our country and our god)
Wondering where best our weary troops should be deployed on that great mazéd battlefield.
How would our forefather’s god, mighty fortress in times of trouble, deign to act against this darkness?.
This running, slumping wave of mud. This torrent of inequity – brown, foul, sticky and kinda icky?

But like blessed Washington (peace be on his name) we too shall change, and overcome and adapt.
And underground like Naval SEALS concealed, unseen by the casual eye, the lines we will bestride.
(Although invisible do not think we are absent, we merely use politics by other means).
And so, in disguise, we roam the Washington nights, looking for targets in our unseen war.’

He’s a laughingstock every time he opens his mouth, and he knows damn well his dumbass agenda will never have anything close to majority support; so hiding and pretending he’s “going underground” is probably the best career strategy he can choose at this time. Maybe his fellow pretentious fake-macho chickenhawk Ted Nugent can join him, and we’ll have the makings of the next (and probably least watchable) “Expendables” movie.

Ibis3, Blighter and Trampler since 1971″ Is this supposed to be humourous because you’re talking about him dressing like a woman?

No, it’s supposed to be funny because it’s him dressing like a woman. Norris is, of course, the manliest of men, in a tribe of manly men. I don’t know how successful the humor is, but Ed has been a champion of gay rights and other non-standard gender issues since I’ve been reading this blog.

I think by going underground, he means he’s going to take six months of solitude to write the definitive volume of American/wingnut poetry. It will either be titled: The Winds Waned Behind Many Patriots’ Ships’ Sails” or “Suck It, Walt Whitman.”